How to display data panels in Grasshopper

[Wouter Beck]

Dear group,

In a Grasshopper simulation I want to display my results in the panels (Analysis Grid) in Rhino in much the same way as shown in the Rothko tutorial.
I've been closely watching the the 2nd Rothko tutorial on the diva-for-rhino wiki. I cannot reproduce the sequence shown there because both Grasshopper and the DIVA-for-Grasshopper plugin have evolved.

My main problem is to generate the panels. In the tutorial these were an output of the Daylight analysis component and fed as geometry to a Preview component.
Directly selecting the analysis grid from the Rhino model as a geometry for the Preview component does not work.
Also using one of the various mesh components as a collector for Rhino geometry and feeding that to the Preview did not work out.

So, how do I generate the Analysis Grid geometry for the Preview component?

Best Regards,

Wouter

[J. Alstan Jakubiec]

Hi Wouter,

Indeed you are correct that the panels are now gone from the Grasshopper
component (I hadn't realized myself)! Perhaps when Jeff gets back from
vacation he can comment on this and what the new workflow should be for
someone moving from DIVA-Rhino to DIVA-Grasshopper. For now I will attempt
to provide a working method:

What I would suggest is the following:

1. Create a mesh surface over your floor OR a dummy surface which has
vertex points to serve as the analysis grid. In the Rhino "Mesh" command,
you can explicitly set the number of vertices, and make sure to turn off
all the checkbox options. See the screenshot:
http://jakubiec.net/temp/diva_gh/001_mesh_surface.png
2. You should have a gridded mesh surface that looks like this:
http://jakubiec.net/temp/diva_gh/002_resulting_srf.png
3. We can check and see that its normals are in the same direction as the
base surface! http://jakubiec.net/temp/diva_gh/003_normal_check.png
4. I setup a Grasshopper definition to use the mesh as the analysis
surface (with the points having a small z-offset) and then color the
surface. The definition looks like this,
http://jakubiec.net/temp/diva_gh/004_gh_setup.png
5. And the end result for a super-simple model looks something like the
following: http://jakubiec.net/temp/diva_gh/005_display.png

I uploaded the Rhino model I used,
http://jakubiec.net/temp/diva_gh/ghtest.3dm
and the grasshopper definition, http://jakubiec.net/temp/diva_gh/test.gh
to my website if you care to look.

I hope this is helpful!

Alstan

[Wouter Beck]

Dear Alstan,

Thanks for this quick and instructive reply.
I got my analysis planes and managed to build a legend along  same lines.
Instead of the 8 discrete cells that comes with the DIVA legend I now have a more continuous scale.

In the old days we had spaghetti code. The Grasshopper code for a legend already has considerable complexity.
From the Grasshopper forum I understand that there is no mechanism (any more) to package this complexity in a subroutine like assembly.
Whats your advice for managing and reusing such functionality?

Best,

Wouter

[J. Alstan Jakubiec]

> From the Grasshopper forum I understand that there is no mechanism (any
> more) to package this complexity in a subroutine like assembly.
>Whats your advice for managing and reusing such functionality?

Hi Wouter,

As far as I am aware, you can still write custom scripts in the
Grasshopper environment (look under the Math > Script menus). In fact,
DIVA-Grasshopper started as one of these scripts, although now Jeff and
Jonnie compile it as a full grasshopper component. I do not have a large
amount of experience programming GH-scripts myself, but I believe this
page might be a good place to start:
http://www.grasshopper3d.com/page/tutorials-1

Back in the day, you used to be able to group a series of GH components
into an input-output structure that appeared in the visual editor as one
component. I am not sure this is the case any longer.

Best,
Alstan